


Psilocybin Dreams

by alienqueequeg



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Dream Sex, Episode: s06e21 Field Trip, F/M, Field Trip, Hallucinations, Mildly Dubious Consent, Psychedelic Horror, Psychedelic Smut, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-01 11:37:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20257483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alienqueequeg/pseuds/alienqueequeg
Summary: While stuck in the Field Trip hallucination, Mulder and Scully confront some truths about their relationship.CW: Sexually explicit content in the first chapter. There are elements of dub-con; sex is not occurring in reality, but they are under the influence so incapable of consent by definition. If this makes you uncomfortable in any way, please skip to chapter two.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MissAnneThrope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissAnneThrope/gifts).

> I’ve taken some liberties here, assuming that the longer they stay in the hallucination, the more their memories would be effected and the more psychedelic the effects would be. 
> 
> I’d been working on this fic for a very long time before joining the exchange. It turned out they needed a sub for a prompt that was virtually the same as what I’d been working on (what are the chances?)
> 
> Big thank you to Shayna (@greycoupon) for the beta help!

All Mulder knows is that his dick feels good. Really good. He’s being held in place by firm thighs. Feminine moans fill his ears. Hair tickles his face. A smudge of red across his vision. 

Oh, Jesus. It’s her. 

Scully.

She’s riding him. 

He must be dreaming. Latent side-effects of the mushroom spores they inhaled. He stares at the back of his hands, the old lucid dreaming technique. Nothing. He pinches himself, and it hurts. 

He doesn’t feel like he’s dreaming. He feels very, very awake. Beyond awake, every sense on high alert and overlapping in his perception. But if he’s not dreaming, how did this start? He doesn’t remember a kiss, much less a conversation. No undressing, no foreplay. No memory of what she tastes like, what she feels like exposed and raw under his tongue. He would’ve committed every detail to memory, playing it over in his mind even now. 

Her cross necklace suspends in the air for a physics-defying moment. She’s making the kind of noises he’s only ever imagined from her. More wanton than he dared portray in his fantasies, and there have been many fantasies over the years. The Scully-taboo never stuck, despite his best efforts. 

Blood pounds in his ears, betraying fear or arousal or both. A steady thrum of warning under overwhelming pleasure. 

She’s pushing her breasts towards him like she wants him to do something about it. Shyly—despite being inside her—he touches her chest. Her tits fit as perfectly in his palms as he’d imagined. He lowers his mouth to a pert nipple, and Scully invokes and curses her god. 

Fuck, she feels good. Hot and tight and delightfully wet. Wetter than any woman has been for him before. He decides that’s flattering, not depressing. He’s not sure how much longer he can last. 

“Scully,” he murmurs.  _ Scully stop _ is what he can’t bring himself to say. Not when her head is thrown back, joyful and lost in sensation. Gripping her hips, he holds her in place, unintentionally pushing himself deeper inside her. Her low moan tightens his balls. 

“Please,” she gasps. “Fuck me, Mulder.” 

He rocks his hips tentatively, and she looks down at him with an expression full of wonder and triumph. It tears something in him. He sees the Scully from before, the woman he pretends not to mourn, all round cheeks and easy smiles. No, this Scully is new. Softened, brightened, happy. It occurs to him that he’s gotten it all wrong. All goddamn wrong. 

“God, Scully. You feel so good.” 

Her grin is delightfully wicked. “You too.” 

Two fingers between his lips, he sucks dutifully. She’s enthralled by the sight like a fantasy is coming to life before her eyes. She takes her time pulling her fingers back, working her way down to her clit, watching him watching her. 

Each thrust from below elicits a jagged moan, each moan gets a little louder. He bends to kiss her jaw, her neck, the base of her throat. Her thighs tremble around him, and he knows she’s close. He’s going to witness her orgasm. 

“I wanna see you come,” he tells her, nibbling her earlobe. “Come for me, Scully.” 

His words push her over the edge. He has to remind himself to keep moving; all he wants to do is stop and admire the glorious sight, to revel in the power of his voice over her. As the contractions slow, she flings her arms around his neck, pulls him closer, hot skin melting together. 

“What are we doing?” he whispers in her ear. “We don’t do this.” 

“Do you not want this?” She pulls back to regard him, anxiety carving grooves between her eyebrows. He can tell she’s confused too, an instinct she’s ignoring in favor of tangible reality. 

“Shit, Scully. This is all I want to do for the rest of my life. But—” 

His forehead splits with pain. Two of her waver before him. 

“What’s wrong?” she asks. 

_ Wrong, wrong, wrong _ echoes through the apartment. Through his bedroom, a void. The smell of crisp air and rock and dirt. Shadows encroaching the corners of his vision. 

Everything that casts light feels like an assault. The blue-green glow of his fish tank. Yellow city light through his window, sliced by his blinds. Her luminescent skin. He squeezes his eyes shut. 

There’s less of her in his arms. She’s insubstantial, sand slipping through his fingers. He tries to call for her, but the words don’t come. 

Hot steam invades his mouth and nostrils, a concentrated version of a naggingly familiar scent. 

They’re in Fort Marlene. Warm water pouring over their bodies. Scratchy concrete from the decontamination shower under his feet. No partition. Scully is clinging to him, her hands on his neck and her legs around his hips, his dick plunged into the heaven that is her body. Daggers in her eyes. She feels strangely weightless. 

He shakes his head, and Scully comes back into focus. Her head is tilted, her face filled with concern. He rubs his temple with the hand that’s not supporting her. 

“Are you okay?” she asks. 

He can’t help but groan as she lifts herself off him, using his shoulders for leverage. She stands on her tiptoes and reaches for his hairline. Her touch is light as she parts the damp strands, more sensual than doctorly. Then again, he often can’t tell if she’s doing any actual doctoring when she pokes and prods him. 

He takes in his surroundings as Scully checks for head trauma. Expensive-looking products from brands he doesn’t recognize. More bottles than his shower has seen during his tenure with it. A silver razor that glints dangerously. A loofah. 

“How did we get here?” Mulder manages to ask before a fresh wave of dizziness passes through him. He’s glad he’s no longer propping her up and steadies himself with two palms on the tile behind him. It’s solid, yet the surface feels like it’s moving in gentle swirls, tickling his skin. 

The steam lifts enough for him to take in the entirety of Scully’s naked form. Her toenails are painted a sickly yellow. No, that can’t be right. A trick of the light. They’re a pale pink. 

“What was I saying?” he asks. 

“I don’t remember.” Her voice is dreamy. She trails her fingers down his chest, her lips quirking up. “But I like you like this. Naked…and wet…and mine.” There’s a bite to her last words, the implication that her claws are drawn. 

She looks him dead in the eye as she circles his cock. For a brief moment, he sees the dreary walls of the decontamination showers. But no, they’re in Scully’s shower, and she’s—oh God—lowering herself to her knees. Her pupils are fully dilated despite the glare of the fluorescent lights against the white tile. Drops of water wobble at the tips of her eyelashes. She tears her eyes from his only to appraise his erection. He’s dizzy again but from pleasure as he passes between her lips. 

Mulder can’t think of anything else as her fingers tease his balls, and she’s sucking him off for all he’s worth, and he’s never been given head like this before. Like she’s parched, and he’s the only water left in the world. He rests a hand at the back of her head—careful not to apply pressure—and loses himself in sensation.

Something’s constricting his neck. He’s being strangled. He pulls at the thing on his throat, and it releases after a brief struggle. He can breathe again, though the pain in his head is blinding. It was only his tie, now askew around his neck. 

They’re in the office, Mulder reclining in his chair and Scully on her knees, bobbing her head. He has a vague recollection of being wet, of being somewhere else, of forgetting something important. 

But he must be dreaming.  _ This _ can’t be real. 

There’s an uneasy feeling in his gut, at odds with the pleasure from Scully’s talented mouth. His cock makes a slow journey from the back of her throat as she pulls her head back, a thin thread of saliva still connecting her lips to tip. His shaft is stained an alarming shade of yellow. No, not yellow. Red. Lipstick, he realizes as he sees her wrecked face. Smeared lipstick, blown-out pupils. 

He loves the way her hands look wrapped around his erection. How she’s touching him like he’s her new favorite toy, her expression as coy as it is predatory. 

He smoothes her hair back from her face as she lowers her head again. Involuntarily, he jerks his hips up, pushing himself further down her throat than seems polite. 

“Sorry,” he mutters. 

Scully surfaces with a pop. “It’s okay.” Her forehead briefly wrinkles with confusion. “That’s easier than usual.” 

She nods at his tentative thrust, telling him everything he needs to know. He holds her head—marveling that it contains the mind he cherishes more than anything—and fucks her beautiful face. 

His orgasm is cosmic, every nerve in his body lighting like stars in a clear night. The palpitations of her throat drain every last drop. 

Scully swallows without giving it much thought, bless her. She rests her head on his thigh, fidgeting with the hem of his open button-down. 

“This has always been a fantasy of mine,” she admits. “You and me in the office like this.” 

“Me too.” 

The nagging feeling that something is wrong surfaces, but all he can see is her. His best friend gazing up at him with adoration in her eyes. He’s tempted to tell her that he loves her, but even in his dream, it feels like the wrong time. He can’t tell her when his erection is obscenely sticking out from his slacks, softening before her face. He wipes a smudge of lipstick from the corner of her mouth. 

“I have another fantasy, you know.” She’s wearing that smile, the one that tells him she’s willing to let her bad side come out to play.

“What’s that?”

She straightens and hops on the desk, hitching her skirt. She’s not wearing anything underneath, no underwear much less hose. Her shoes look different too; stilettos instead of her usual chunky pumps. He’s seen this movie; it’s resided somewhere at the top of his collection for the last six years. 

“Mulder, are you stalling?” she asks. “If you don’t want to do this, it’s okay.” 

She starts to draw her legs together, shutting down. 

“This,” he declares, “is my favorite part.” 

He pushes the chair away and shoves her legs apart, sending her sprawling back. Papers flutter around the room, making slow descents to the floor. She’s laughing and grinning as he plants kisses down the insides of her thighs. 

“Stop teasing!”

“But you’re so much fun to tease,” he counters, splitting her sex with his tongue and making her gasp. 

He finds her to be wonderfully sensitive, her body trembling around him as he tugs at her clit with his lips. She hitches her legs over his shoulders, pulling him closer and threading her fingers through his hair. He wants to spend an eternity losing himself in her body. He’s lost already. No light passes from under her skirt, just tunneling darkness. Her voice comes from a distance— _ Just like that, yes, oh my god, Mulder _ —yet sounds dangerously loud for the office. 

She comes apart against his mouth, grinding her hips and pulling him closer, closer, closer, until he can’t breathe, until he can’t feel her anymore. Dream to nightmare. She’s being sucked away from him, pulled into a void. 

And then, nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

Scully’s arm is flung across Mulder’s chest. She’s exhaling gently on his shoulder, her hair ruffled and her expression peaceful. One smooth, bare leg curls against his rough one. He peels his head off the pillow to take in their surroundings, and she stirs closer. 

They’re in a hotel with no discernible features, a generic composite of the countless hotels they’ve frequented. Outside, it’s raining. At least, he thinks it’s rain; it lands with a thick squish. Their clothes are strewn across the room. He gingerly lifts the blanket to survey the damage. Scully is wearing only his Knick’s shirt, and he’s only wearing boxers. 

His head is killing him. 

So they got drunk and hooked up. Even though they don’t have sex, they rarely drink and, if the file on the desk is to be believed, they’re on a case.

Mulder floods with fury. He’s finally taken that step with her, but he has no memory of it. 

Wait, no. 

The memories are there. 

His head throbs as he accesses them: the office, the shower, the couch. A whole lot of nothing in between. There are other, less tangible memories, too. Fogged windows in a rental car, Scully’s skin painted in moonlight. Scully on her stomach in a bed much like this one, his fingers threaded through hers as she claws at the rough sheets. Scully grinning, dangling government-issued handcuffs from a crooked finger. 

He pulls a strand of her from her mouth, tracing her cheeks. She releases a sleepy moan against his shoulder. 

“Hey,” he says softly. 

She doesn’t open her eyes as she asks, “What’s going on?” 

“I was hoping you could help me figure that out.” 

She peels herself away from him, and Mulder misses her warmth. He resists the overwhelming desire to pull her back into his arms and forget the strangeness of the situation. He urge is his own, but the compulsion is strangely powerful. 

To his relief, Scully looks only confused, not revolted, as she takes in the post-coital scene.

“Where are we?” She already sounds more alert. She’ll be at full capacity in t-minus sixty seconds. 

“What’s the last thing you remember?” 

She rubs her eyes in a charmingly childlike gesture. Her face is bare, freckles and pale lashes startling in their honesty. “The office. We were…” She winces and rubs her temples. “My head…”

“I felt the same way when I remembered.” 

He studies her face for evidence of regret or horror but sees only his own bewilderment reflected back at him. 

“How did we get here?” She shakes her head as though trying to loosen up memories. 

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.” 

Mulder swings his legs out of bed and stoops to grab his jeans. As he shimmies them on, he glances back to catch her staring. He can’t help himself. “You like what you see?” 

The tips of Scully’s ears turn pink, and she stretches his shirt further down her lap. 

He tosses the case file on the bed, and she switches the lamp on, spreading the papers before her. 

“Am I having a stroke?” Her voice is high and laced with pure terror. It stands the hairs at the base of his neck on end. 

He takes the sheet from her trembling hand. The texture of the paper, the formatting, even the font matches a typical case file, but the letters don’t resemble any human language. The longer he stares, the more the lines bend and breathe. He flips through the rest of the pages, all typed neatly in that otherworldly language. The attached photos are a collage of typical cases: cattle mutilations, ritual killings, unexplained lights in the sky. Decomposing corpses in rooms painted with blood in letters resembling those in the file. 

“Not unless I’m having the same stroke,” he says. 

Scully stacks the pages and sets them back in the file, pushing it away. 

Mulder tries to keep his voice gentle, swallowing the rising terror in his throat. “Do you remember anything before the office?” 

“Bits and pieces,” she says. “We were in my apartment. And yours before that, I think.” She rubs her brow, and Mulder can’t help feeling guilty for asking. 

“I know this is a weird question,” he ventures. “But have you thought about wearing my shirt before?” 

“Why?” She eyes him suspiciously. 

“What happened in the office and our apartments …that’s all stuff I’ve, uh, thought about before.” 

“Get to the point, Mulder,” she snaps. Good to know some things never change. 

“I don’t think we ever escaped. I think we’re still trapped, and none of this is real. I think I’ve come to this realization before, but I couldn’t hold on to it.” 

“But we did escape. I remember turning in our report and...”

“And what? What happened after we turned in our report?” 

Scully glares at him. She shuts her eyes as she rides out a fresh wave of pain. 

He winces but goes on. “The hallucination is being informed by our collective minds. The longer we spend in this state, the deeper into our subconscious minds we go. Wouldn’t it then stand that the hallucination would start to take the form of images with both share? Our fantasies.” 

“I think I was at your wake before. That’s hardly a fantasy.” 

“Well, that’s very comforting. But that was before we found our ways into each other’s heads.”

“We have an entire history together, Mulder. Why wouldn’t it take the form of a shared memory?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t understand the mechanism, but the fact remains, we’re trapped. Unless you’re telling me there’s no part of you, on any level, that wants any of this.” 

She twists her mouth and picks at a stray thread in the hem of his shirt. Goddammit, Scully. 

Mulder sighs and stalks over to the window, yanking the blinds open. “It’s raining bile. Hallelujah.” 

Apprehensively, Scully moves next to him. 

“Oh,” she says softly, her knuckles white around in the windowsill. 

Together, they watch the hypnotic descent, slow drops squeezed from the sky, forming viscous pools in the parking lot.

“If you have another theory that doesn’t involve us being digested in the stomach acid of a carnivorous mushroom, I’m all ears.” 

“It would explain the case file,” she murmurs to herself. “And the memory gaps.” 

“And what we were doing.” 

He catches a flash of a hurt look which is immediately replaced by a stony expression. Her walls are coming down. 

“Scully, that’s not what I mean,” he sighs. “All I’m saying is, we wouldn’t arrive there spontaneously. The fact that we were doing it in the first place makes more sense than just about anything.” He puts a light hand on the small of her back, hoping she reads into the familiarity of the gesture.  _ His  _ spot _ . _

“We need to find a way to wake up,” she says flatly. “Maybe a shock to the motor system, even in the hallucination.” 

“Even if we find a way to wake up,” he counters, “we’ll still be trapped underground, probably paralyzed, and the hallucination is—“ 

“The only thing keeping us from the excruciating pain of hydrochloric acid dissolving our flesh. I get the picture.” She frowns, considering. “We should scream.” 

“You think we’ve been acting it out on physical level this whole time? If that’s the case, we should be grateful we haven’t been rescued yet.” 

Scully rolls her eyes and opens the window, letting out a shriek through the screen which vibrates at the sound waves. Mulder joins her. They scream together, willing the sky to crack open, and the light to pour in. They scream until their throats go raw. They scream until a pounding at the door grows louder and louder, rattling the walls. 

They scramble for their weapons, managing to toss their holsters and raise their guns the moment Skinner breaks down the door. He stands panting in the broken door frame, eyebrows raising as he assesses the scene. 

“Well, you two have certainly been busy,” Skinner says sardonically. 

Scully looks around wildly, strategizing for how she can get dressed from the strewn clothing. 

“It’s not him,” he reminds her. “None of this is real.” 

“What the hell are you on about, Agent Mulder?” 

“What if he’s trapped, too?” she hisses, keeping her gun trained on Skinner. “He could’ve been exposed to the mushroom spores in the rescue effort.” 

“And found his way into our hallucination? I think there’s a certain level of, uh, intimacy required for that.” 

“You don’t know that,” she insists. “Maybe the longer you stay trapped, you find your way into the heads of everyone else who is trapped. Some kind of collective consciousness.” 

Skinner stands still as his eyes track around the room, a smirk on his face. He reminds Mulder of a video game character waiting for stimuli. 

“Even if that were true,” he says. “He’s still not real. We’re not real.” 

He flips the safety on his gun. 

“Mulder, what about psychogenic death? It’s extremely rare and usually occurs after an intense trauma, but there have been reported cases of the body shutting down after going into a state of shock believing they were about to die. Those cases were linked to a belief in curses or other supernatural events, but I have to imagine a hallucination this vivid could have the same effect.” 

Mulder strides up to Skinner and punches him in the nose. Yellow blood gushes from his nose, now squished back into his face. His head seems to deflate as though a release valve was hit. “Agent Mulder, I’m placing you under arrest for the assault of a fed…er…al…” His words start to slow as he sinks to the floor. “Off…i..cer…” 

Mulder puts one between his eyes. The image of Skinner’s body loses composure as it jerks against the floor. His mouth takes on an ungodly howl, and the energy in the room grows darker, sapped of color like watching a photograph age. 

“Seems like he should dissolve,” Mulder thinks out loud, nudging the body with his foot. The walls start to breathe. 

Scully’s face is white. She drops her gun on the bed and frantically pulls out fresh clothes from her suitcase. He’s encouraged by her lack of modesty as she throws his t-shirt at his face.

“Where are you going?” he asks. 

She expertly snaps her bra. Her laugh is mirthless. “Where am I going?” Her tone suggests it’s the stupidest question she’s ever heard. 

“I mean, do you have a plan?” 

“I walk. I drive. I do anything that’s not waiting for death in this hotel room.” 

He comes up behind her as she straightens her sweater around her waist. She freezes but allows him to wrap his arms around her. 

“We can’t,” she says, contradicting herself as she tilts her head, allowing him to nuzzle her neck. 

“I’m not trying to seduce you,” he says honestly, though the thought had occurred to him. They are stuck for the foreseeable future, and the prospect of death is a hell of an aphrodisiac. 

She’s so warm under his touch; heat spreads from his hands through his limbs. He can feel the bird-like flutter of her heartbeat everywhere he touches her. 

Scully turns around and puts her hands on his chest, pushing him back but lingering longer than necessary. “I can feel myself starting to forget when you touch me like that.” 

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly. “It’s hard to keep my hands off you.” It’s true, but there’s underlying desperation to it. He can’t let her pull away, not this time. He can’t let her forget how good it is between them. 

“That’s very sweet, Mulder,” she says, her voice hollow. She finds her black trench coat on the floor and pulls it around her. 

He follows her through the broken door frame down the facade of the motel. The rain has given way to snow, and he regrets not grabbing his coat. In their fractured reality, he half-expected them to materialize in the car, careening to a new destination. Instead, they walk every freezing inch to the lone vehicle at the end of the parking lot: a beige Honda Accord. 

“If this is a hallucination, why is it so fucking cold?” Scully asks, echoing his own thoughts. 

They break into a brisk jog, the snow moving in erratic eddies around them. When they reach the car, Mulder fumbles with the keys, cursing the hallucination for making small tasks so tricky. He blasts the heat as soon as the keys are in the ignition, and Scully rubs her hands. The headlights expose vortexes of snow in  _ Starry Night _ swirls. 

“Where to?” he asks dryly. 

“Just drive.” 

Mulder fights the urge to use his turn signal as he pulls away from the motel. Scully buckles her seatbelt and shoots Mulder an irritable look when he chuckles. 

Outside the cone of visibility afforded to them by the headlights, there’s vast, consuming darkness. Snow leaves Star Trek trails as they hurtle down the road. 

Flickering lights appear in the distance. On instinct, Mulder checks the time. But as they approach, it’s revealed to only be the vacancy sign of the motel. 

“Do it again and go left,” she says. 

“We just came from the left.” 

“Do it again and go left,” she repeats, her voice taking on a familiar dangerous pitch. 

Again, darkness. No discernible landmarks. No mile markers, no road signs. This time, he can make out the silhouettes of perfectly proportioned firs lining the road, swaying to their own rhythm. 

“One more time,” Scully says when they inevitably arrive back at the motel. 

Fighting her on this would be just as pointless as complying, and it’s not like he has a better plan. He hits the gas and watches impassively as the odometer rises: 70, 80, 90, 100, 105…

Lights again, but different this time. A golden glow leaks across the horizon, swallowing the night. 

Mulder hits the brakes. Under their tires, cement turns to gravel. They bounce along a dirt road that leads to a modest white house with a wrap-around porch. It’s surrounded by trees whose gnarled spines bend away from the ocean, warped by centuries of sea wind. 

Scully opens the door the second the car comes to a halt, letting in the sound of crashing waves, the scent of the ocean. He smiles at the sight of her lifting her chin to breathe it in. Despite her existential terror, she takes comfort in the sea. But the moment is over as they take in the sight of each other. 

Scully looks down in horror at the long-sleeve black dress that sways around her knees, a dress for dancing. He’s wearing a slate grey sweater and black slacks. 

“We look like we’re—” 

“Coming home from a date,” he finishes for her. 

They share an apprehensive look before climbing the stairs to the house. Before the key slides neatly in the lock, he knows. This is the house where they live together. This is the house where they are meant to die.


	3. Chapter 3

Scully’s heels click on the hardwood floor as she stalks across the living room. She trails her fingers down the book’s spines. Their collections combined, Sagan nested against Dostoyevsky. 

Mulder wanders to the framed photos on the mantle. Of all the pictures—him and Scully with their arms around each other, hamming for an unknown photographer—only one draws all the light from the room. His eyes prickle as he takes it in. 

Scully materializes behind him, and he braces himself for her reaction. Her eyes widen as she sees Mulder in a black suit and bowtie, staring down at her with an expression of pure adoration and devotion. Scully in a mermaid-cut gown, curls falling out of a complicated updo to frame her face. The photo cuts off at their thighs, but some of the lace train is visible against the bright green grass. Her head is back, and she’s laughing, lost in a moment that belongs only to them. 

Her hand snaps to her mouth, and they both see it. Pillow-cut diamond with a twist band, Mulder thinks, drawing on a buried memory of ring shopping. As if in a trance, he lifts her hand to admire it. The stone picks up and throws back all the disparate colors of the room. 

Scully pulls her hand back. She’s pale, miles away from the carefree, in-love woman in the photograph. She looks like she’s going to throw up; she won’t meet his eyes. The air in the room pulses to a vaguely sinister beat. Mulder sets the photograph back where he found it. 

He wanders off, ostensibly to explore the rest of the house, but mostly to get away from her. The horror on her face is a knife twisting in his gut. 

In their house by the sea, they have home offices. A welcoming bowl of fruit on the kitchen counter. Their toiletries sit in companionable disarray in the bathroom. In the bedroom, reading glasses on each nightstand. Slippers discarded by the bed. A closet half-heartedly divided between his and hers. 

He sits on the mattress, puts his head in his hands, and lets himself cry. 

He doesn’t notice Scully until the bed shifts. Her cool hand rubs circles on his back. Her kindness is worse than her inadvertent cruelty, and he wipes away a fresh set of tears, muttering an apology. 

“It’s okay,” she says gently. I’m scared, too.” 

“This isn’t because I’m scared.” 

The words hang between them with all their implications. 

“We need to focus on our survival. If we let ourselves get distracted by our personal feelings, we might start to forget again.” 

“Fine,” he says sharply. “What about after we get rescued?” 

Scully pulls her hand back and wraps her arms around her body. She remains silent. 

“Scully, I need you to talk to me. None of this would be possible unless you, on some level, felt the same way. And if there isn’t some part of you that doesn’t want this”—he gestures at their shared bedroom—“then I need to know. I need to know because it means I’m alone in this head trip after all. And I just…I need to know.” 

“Mulder, please. Not like this.” 

“Then, when?” Mulder seems unable to control the rising volume of his voice. “If we get rescued and pretend none of this happened, Scully…I’m gonna lose my goddamn mind.” 

“I can’t have this conversation right now.” Her voice cracks around the words. 

“Look, I’m sorry,” he says. “But I don’t want to die without telling you that I’m in love with you.” 

Scully makes a strangled noise in her throat. She looks down at the ring on her finger, her breath shallow. “I can’t,” she says quietly. “Not like this.” She gives him one long, regretful look before fleeing the bedroom. The house rocks from the impact of the front door slamming. 

In case he never sees it again, he takes it all in. The house that belongs to them. The black pumps shelved neatly in the closet and the pile of leather dress shoes in careless disarray. The sofa dipped from years of use. Criss-crossed toothbrushes in a faded mug. That fucking wedding photo. 

A scream in the distance jars him back to reality. The walls shudder. 

He finds Scully sitting on the beach, her arms wrapped around her knees and her head back, screaming at the sky. It’s daytime again, the sun making a slow descent to the horizon. 

“Someone help us,” she yells before releasing a litany of curses.

“I have to say,” Mulder says as he kneels beside her in the sand. “I preferred your reaction to my other love declaration.” 

Scully turns to look at him. The wind lifts her hair, slowly, like she’s underwater. “Maybe you’d have better results when you’re not high.” 

He can’t help the bubble of hope rising in him, despite everything. “So you ran away screaming from my bad timing?” 

“Something like that.” Scully hangs her head between her knees and releases a shuddering breath. 

He peels her hand from around her knees and takes it in his. She snatches it back when she catches him staring at the ring. 

“Relax, Scully. I’m not asking you to marry me.” 

She sighs. “I don’t want you to think I find the idea abhorrent.” 

Mulder keeps his mouth shut. He knows from experience that silence is the best way to keep someone talking. 

“But to talk about marriage when we haven’t so much as kissed…In reality, that is. And without knowing what it would be like, seeing you…romantically and working together.” She swallows. 

“We’re not talking about marriage,” he says after a long pause, confirming she’s done speaking. “I mean, I’d ask you right now if I thought there was a chance in hell you’d say yes. But I think I know you better than that.” 

Frothy waves lick at their feet. Mulder thumbs the diamond. “All this means is somewhere in our subconscious minds, we want a future together.” 

Scully huffs. “Some future. For all we know, we’re already dead.” 

“Not a bad way to spend the afterlife, is it? We get this cozy house for all eternity, a beach all to ourselves. Spend our days tripping out and making love.” 

Scully stares at him, horrified. “That sounds like a death wish.” 

“No, honey.” The word feels strange but good on his tongue. It makes her soften, almost imperceptibly. “But I can’t think of a better way to spend the afterlife.”

Beams of sunlight spill like magma over the ocean, casting everything in yellow, making Scully’s hair glitter. 

“All of this, it’s just you and me,” he says. “And look at how beautiful it is.” 

He wipes a stray tear from her cheek and kisses her softly on the corner of her mouth. She turns to him, opens to him. He can feel it plainly as she presses her mouth to his. His answer. The love that spreads between them. He knows it’s the mushrooms giving his skin that electric tingle, but still, there’s truth there. 

“I don’t want to die like this.” 

“They’re looking for us right now,” he assures her. “We could get rescued any minute.” 

Scully leans her head against his shoulder. Mulder pulls her tight against him. 

“What’s going to happen with us?” she asks. “After we get rescued?” 

“I think it’s safe to say we’ll spend some time in the hospital being treated for chemical burns.” Their bodies might be horrifically disfigured by now, but it’s not worth mentioning. 

“And after that?” 

“We go home. I’ll drop you off at your apartment. If I’m lucky, you’ll invite me up for coffee, but you’ll probably be sick of me after the hospital.” 

“I’ll invite you up.” She waits for him to go on, to tell her a story. 

“If you have other intentions, I might be too dense to realize it at first.” 

“I’ll have other intentions,” she says softly. 

“Once I figure that out, we’ll make love.” 

“What if it’s not the same?” she asks. 

“You mean, what if it’s better in the hallucination?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Scully dips her toes into the sand. It swallows her, ankle-deep. They watch a flock of gulls in the distance, circling like vultures. 

“It will be better,” he assures her. “Because it’s real.” 

“You can’t know that.” 

“I know being with the woman of my dreams for the first time would be a goddamn revelation.” 

“Tell me.” Her voice is almost a whisper. “Tell me what it will be like.” 

“I want to make it so good for you.” He pictures Scully naked and flushed from two orgasms, snapping at him to fuck her already. “ I want to do it properly, on your bed. I want to take my time. Learn all the ways you want to be touched, all your favorite spots. When it happens, I want to see your face.” 

“Hmm,” she says noncommittally. 

“Don’t like the way that sounds?” 

“No, it’s not that. I just pictured it a little differently.” 

“Tell me,” he says, echoing her words. 

“Let’s just say I didn’t picture us making it to the bed.” She lifts her head, and they share a smile. 

“Hey, if you want to jump my bones the second we walk in your door, you won’t get any complaints from me.” 

She laughs and rests back against him. “And after that?” 

“Depends. Will you let me spend the night?” 

With some difficulty, she nods. 

“I’d like to say we’ll spend all night making love, but realistically we’ll be too exhausted. But I’ll stay awake after you fall asleep, holding you and wondering what the hell I did to deserve this.”

“You deserve this,” she says, almost to herself.

“The next day, I’ll have a moment of panic thinking I’m still trapped underground because this will all be too good to be true. But I’ll get over it and start hunting for breakfast ingredients.” He stops to think. “Something tells me you won’t have any fresh groceries, so I’ll go to that bodega down the street that has those breakfast sandwiches you love so much but never let yourself eat.” 

“You’re a bad influence.” 

“Yeah, but you like it.” He nuzzles the crown of her head. “If you’re up for it, we’ll spend all day making love, ordering delivery so we don’t have to leave.” 

“You dog.” 

“Oh? What would you like to do instead?”

“I’d like to get  _ some _ fresh air between the marathon sex,” she quips to Mulder’s appreciative laughter. 

God, he loves this woman. He feels a pinch of melancholy; all the time they’ve wasted, all the fun they could have been having. 

“What happens after we go back to work?” 

“You tell me.” 

She scowls at him. 

“I’m serious,” he insists. “You know what I want. I just want to be with you. However you want me.” 

“I like what we have. I want the same, but better.” She looks down as a wave drags away most of the sand from her feet. 

With perfect clarity, Mulder sees all the ways it could go wrong. She’s taken from him again. He screws it all up by making a stupid choice that seems like the right idea at the time. Scully can’t handle so much of him—in her work, in her body, in her precious alone time—and flees. 

“It’s gonna be so good,” he vows. 

“If we get the chance.” 

“If we get the chance.” 

Some sick part of him wants this to be it. He wants to spend forever watching the trees shiver like they’re laughing at a private joke. To swim in the ocean and explore its hidden depths. To enjoy their bodies together, all heightened sensation and unencumbered by physics or injury. He wants Scully to already be wearing the ring. He wants to have a home together instead of lonely apartments. He wants to watch Scully watch the sea and know for certain they’ll never be separated again. 

But Scully could never be happy here. Scully needs to stand on solid ground. 

The sun disappears behind the horizon as dark clouds amass over their heads, blotting out any remaining light from the atmosphere. 

He kisses her again. She twists toward him, slipping into his lap and drawing him flush against her. There’s an urgency to her movements. Desperation in the way her nails sink into his back, clawing at his sweater. All he can do is pull her closer. All he ever can do is pull her closer. 

Black raindrops fall heavy on the beach, wetting their hair. The sea begins to churn. Scully scrambles out of Mulder’s lap and attempts to stand, only to be dragged down by the current. 

The drops are bursting now, little bombs of powdery soil everywhere. He hears voices, though he can’t identify a source. “They’re here! Get over here! They’re here!” 

They open their mouths to scream as a much larger wave forms in the distance, approaching at a rapid rate. It’s large enough to swallow the house and drag them both out to sea. 

Scully is doubled over, vomiting bile and dirt. 

Above them, the sky cracks open to reveal sun. Real sun, far too bright. 

Hands of god reaching down from the sky. 

The wave poises to crash, and their reality dissolves. 

* * *

Mulder wakes up in the bouncing ambulance. He smells dirt and stomach acid and realizes the smell is him. His skin burns, and every pore feels clogged. He looks over at Scully, equally filthy, and reaches for her. Without looking, she latches her fingers to his. 

_ We got our chance _ , she tells him without opening her mouth. The words appear in his mind, in her voice, with perfect clarity. 

He feels the sparks between them, radiating from the small place where their fingers touch. There’s still a part of him that longs for the beautiful potential of their house by the sea. 

Her eyes meet his, and his sick desire vanishes. They might have to do it the hard way, but they get their chance. He gets his chance to make her happy.


End file.
